CHICAGO (CBS) — The clock is ticking on TikTok, with the popular social med app set to shut down in the U.S, this coming weekend.
TikTok could shut down the social media site in the U.S. by Sunday, Jan. 19, unless the Supreme Court strikes down or otherwise delays the effective date of a law aimed at forcing TikTok’s sale by its Chinese parent company.
“Absent such relief, the Act will take effect on January 19, 2025,” TikTok said in a Dec. 9 legal filing. “That would shut down TikTok—one of the Nation’s most popular speech platforms — for its more than 170 million domestic monthly users on the eve of a presidential inauguration.”
If that happens, 170 million TikTok users could start seeing changes—and those changes are not limited to users simply losing access to the app.
Chicago influencer Dean Lauvina said he built his entire platform on TikTok, and he could lose it in a matter of days.
Whether they know him or not, people all over the city give Lauvina tours of their Chicago apartments to show what is available for rent at certain price points in different neighborhoods.
Sauvina first asks people on the street—most renters, but some owners or even agents—how much they pay for their apartments. Then those people take him on a tour of their apartments—some simple, others luxurious.
Sauvina depends on his nearly 190,000 TikTok followers for supplemental income. If the Chinese-owned app were to be banned in the United States due to national security concerns, Sauvina said it would cut back his audience.
“That stinks, because of a lot of these other platforms are more so, like, they are not as broad,” he said.
Marshini Chetty, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Chicago, said this situation with TikTok is a novel one.
“I don’t think an app has been banned in this manner before,” she said.
Chetty said if the ban does go into effect, app stores will stop distributing the app and will not provide updates.
But for those who already have it, Chetty said, “It’s not like the app is just going to stop working on your phone.”
But some experts say it actually could. In one scenario, TikTok will go dark, and users will receive a notice indicating that it’s not functional or available to them.
“They will get a notice that says, ‘This service is not available in your country. That’s most likely what will happen based on what we’ve seen in other countries that have banned certain platforms,” Timothy Edgar, a professor of cybersecurity at Brown University, told CBS MoneyWatch. “This generation may be in for a very rude awakening if the law goes into effect and they find a major social media platform that they came to rely on as creators, or just users, is suddenly not available.”
While such an action would be unprecedented in the U.S., that’s been the experience of users of banned apps in other countries, added Edgar, who thinks this is most likely outcome in the U.S.
Other cybersecurity experts said TikTok might not become inaccessible overnight, but rather that the user experience in the U.S. will degrade over time. Chetty agreed, and said the app might also lose popularity over time if it’s banned.
Lauvina is taking an optimistic viewpoint. If the shutdown does happen, he plans to pivot and focus on another platform.
“I still have hope. I still have hope,” he said. “But if it goes away, I’m also kind of prepared for that too.”
Cybersecurity experts recommend TikTok users download their content so they have access to it after Sunday. They also suggest people do switch to another platform.
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